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Wednesday, August 5, 2015

If you subscribe to my newsletter, then you'll remember that last month I mentioned being mindful of different spellings of words depending on how they are being used. Yes, I'm talking about the same word being spelled differently if it's used as a noun, verb, adjective, etc. Crazy, right? That's the English language for you. ;)

Grammar geeks like me thrive on this stuff, but the typical writer does not. My suggestion is to make Merriam-Webster and Chicago Manual of Style your best friends. I always have a tab open to Merriam-Webster to make sure I'm using the proper spelling for words. I also refer to Chicago manual of Style's hyphenation table quite frequently. As an editor, I have to do this because I don't want errors in my clients' books. But all authors should do this. Here's an example of what I mean:

speed dial — This is the noun form. I hit four on my speed dial.

speed-dial — This is the verb form. I speed-dial Trish.

Spell check (Ugh, don't get me started on spell check!) won't catch these mistakes. (Spell check is stupid. It often suggests changes that are incorrect! Oops, there I go again.)

So, if you're unsure of a word—whether to hyphenate it, write it as one word, or write it as two—check Merriam-Webster and Chicago Manual of Style. (Seriously, bookmark both of those pages!) Your editor will love you for it. ;)

24 comments:

Yes! Editors notice it too. Mine tend to comment on how polished my manuscripts are when they hit their desks. I give Merriam-Webster and Chicago Manual of Style credit for that, because we all know how difficult it is to edit your own work.

My parents both immigrated from the Netherlands. My mother's family got English lessons here, and the instructor said that the English language, in terms of style and things like silent letters, could be insane at times.

About Me

Kelly Hashway fully admits to
being one of the most accident-prone people on the planet, but that didn’t stop
her from jumping out of an airplane at ten thousand feet one Halloween. Maybe
it was growing up reading R.L. Stine’s Fear Street books that instilled a love
of all things scary and a desire to live in a world filled with supernatural
creatures, but she spends her days writing speculative fiction and is a USA Today bestseller. Kelly is
also USA Today bestselling romance author Ashelyn Drake. When she’s not
writing, Kelly works as an editor and also as Mom, which she believes is a
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